Grace
by Bil
Summary: Teal'c keeps fighting after the deaths of his team mates. Complete.


"Grace"  
by Bil!

Category: Angst? Songfic.  
Spoilers: None?  
Rating: PG  
Season: Written from a season 2 perspective, but set one or two years on from then. If that makes sense.  
Content Warnings: Character death(s)  
Archive: Do not archive without permission.  
Disclaimer: This Universe and all it contains are MGM and co's. No money has been received for this, a work of fiction. "Amazing Grace" belongs to John Newton and is used without permission.  
Author's Notes: Response to one of the earlier challenges on Heliopolis to use "Amazing Grace" in a fic.  
Any mistakes, icky bits? Tell me!

* * *

**Part the First**

_Amazing grace, how sweet the sound,_  
_That saved a wretch like me,_  
_I once was lost, but now am found,_  
_Was blind but now I see._

The ordeal is now over, and people begin to file out of the flower-filled room. I stand still and watch the faces moving past me. Many faces, both familiar and unfamiliar' many faces, pale, drawn and weeping.

I alone remain impassive, seemingly unmoved by my location. Appearances can be most deceptive.

When the last has gone, I walk slowly to the front of the room.

MajorCarter lies in a simple but elegant wooden 'coffin', looking almost as though she is asleep. Only a single bruise on one cheek bears testimony to the violence of her death.

There has been too much death in the past two months. This is the third funeral I have attended in that time, and I am now the only remaining member of the original SG-1. Our good fortune has ended.

* * *

DanielJackson was the first of us to die. A chance encounter with Apophis' Jaffa forced us to retreat back to the Stargate. As we entered the Stargate, DanielJackson pushed me to one side, thus taking a staff weapon blast intended for myself.

I caught him as we stumbled out of the Stargate, and laid him on the ramp. O'Neill and MajorCarter quickly came to my side, and DanielJackson looked at us with pain-clouded eyes.

"You guys..." he whispered. "You guys are the best family anyone ever had..."

Those were the last words he ever spoke.

O'Neill attempted to smile. "Come on, Danny-boy, you haven't used up all your nine lives yet." But his voice was pleading rather than teasing, and DanielJackson did not reply, but instead closed his eyes, and, even as DoctorFraiser reached his side, slipped into the coma from which he would not awake.

It is ironic that after all the pain I caused him through Sha're, he died to save my life. He is - was - a far greater man than I.

O'Neill was killed soon after, while offworld with SG-3. A civilisation long abandoned by the Goa'uld had invented both primitive projectile weapons and extreme paranoia. O'Neill covered his team mates' escape, but he did not return. We sent a UAV throught the Stargate in order to search for him. MajorCarter, guiding the UAV, was the first to see him. She made no sound, but simply pointed to a crude gibbet on which O'Neill's body had been hung. A warning to us to keep away. There was silence, then tears and anger, in the control room, and I mourned. We never returned to the planet. There was no coffin at his funeral.

MajorCarter found the loss of her team mates most upsettting and was temporarily denied access through the Stargate. However, an error made in the translation of an artifact, one that would not have been made had DanielJackson remained alive, resulted in her investigations releasing a hazardous creature of unknown origin. She killed both herself and the creature to prevent it from moving through the SGC and killing base personnel.

I was the first to find her, still barely alive.

She smiled at me. "They're waiting, Teal'c," she told me, and then she quietly faded away. I knelt at her side and gently closed her unseeing eyes.

* * *

Released once more from the grip of my memories, I study MajorCarter's still face. This, then, is how it ends.

"Goodbye, MajorCarter." My voice echoes oddly through the empty room. I turn and walk towards the exit.

My team mates are now dead, and I am no longer anything more than an alien in an alien world. They saved me from the rule of the false gods, and now those same beings have destroyed them.

I will make the Goa'uld pay.

* * *

**Part the Second**

_'Twas grace that taught my heart to fear,_  
_And grace that fear relieved._  
_How precious did that grace appear,_  
_The hour I first believed._

"Teal'c. How are you doing, son?" GeneralHammond has become most adept at predicting my movements.

I look up at him briefly, but do not answer, instead continuing to remove MajorCarter's personal belongings from the shelves in her lab.

He does not question my silence, but instead looks into a small box of photographs. The uppermost picture is of SG-1. My Tau'ri teammates are laughing and I am less solemn than usual. The memories the picture produces are pleasant, but I no longer enjoy them. I turn so that I am unable to see the picture.

I hear him breathe out slowly and sadly before he speaks again. "Teal'c, we need to talk about reassigning you -"

"That will not be necessary," I inform him.

"Oh? And why is that?"

"I wish to leave the SGC."

"Leave?" His voice holds surprise. "Why?"

I turn to face him, and see that he has taken the photograph in his hand. "You no longer require my presence."

"Of course we need you!" he protest.

"GeneralHammond," I interrupt, "the Tau'ri are capable of fighting without my assistance. I will return to Chulak and encourage my people to fight the Goa'uld. I would have returned after the death of O'Neill, but I remained for the sake of MajorCarter. She is no longer a consideration." My hand tightens ever so slightly on the papers in my hands, angry at the truth of my words.

GeneralHammond stares at the picture in his hands for a long moment. "If you're sure about this...?" He looks up at me and I nod. He sighs unhappily. "It's your choice, son. But we'll miss you."

"And I you," I assure him. "Perhaps one day I will be able to return."

His gaze drifts back down to his hands. "Perhaps," he echoes.

* * *

**Part the Third**

_Through many dangers, toils and snares,_  
_I have already come._  
_'Tis grace hath brought me safe thus far,_  
_And grace will lead me home._

I stand in the gate room for what will most probably be my final time. I can still remember clearly the first time I stood in this room as an ally. I had given up my family and my life for these people. At the time I was unaware that they would grant me a new life and a new family. For DanielJackson was correct; SG-1 was indeed a family, and so we shall remain. Death cannot part us.

I move to stand at the base of the ramp, before the open Stargate, my staff weapon reassuringly real in my hand. GeneralHammond and DoctorFraiser stand to one side, watching me. I give them a deep nod of respect, and GeneralHammond salutes me. DoctorFraiser pauses uncertainly, tears in her eyes, before embracing me fiercely.

She returns to her place and removes the tears with her hand. "Don't get yourself killed, Teal'c," she says.

"I will do as you say," I reply solemnly, then walk up the ramp. Before stepping into the wormhole, I turn to look one last time at the strange, alien place thatbecame, for these few short years, my home.

Three quick strides and I have left it all behind.

**

* * *

Part the Fourth**

_The Lord has promised good to me,_  
_His word my hope secures,_  
_He will my sword and portion be,_  
_As long as my life endures_

The 'knockout gas' that was sent prior to my departure is most efficient, and my return to Chulak is not protested by the pair of unconscious Jaffa collapsed by the DHD. I ignore their fallen bodies and quickly gain the shelter of the woods.

I make my camp in the ruins of what was once my house, and wonder how my wife and son are doing. I hope they are well.

It is quiet here, a place of deep peace that aids me in finding my equilibrium. I wait out a day and a night, content to relax in the solitude. It may be the last peace I see for many, many years.

And then Master Bra'tac finds me.

We greet each other silently, and he sits beside me, following my gaze into the depths of the woods. There are no words; there is no need for them. He knows why I am here.

Eventually I speak the words anyway. "It is time for our people to regain their freedom."

He is silent for a moment. "Your friends." A question and not a question.

"They are dead."

He sighs softly, then nods his head once. "It is time," he agrees.

We stand and walk into the dim, quiet depths of the woods.

It is time.

* * *

**Part the Fifth**

_Yes, when this flesh and heart shall fail,_  
_And mortal life shall cease;_  
_I shall possess within the veil,_  
_A life of joy and peace._

"Teal'c!" ColonelGraham approaches me quickly. "We're ready."

I nod to him, as around us SGC personnel and free Jaffa wait for the battle to begin.

This will be the last battle, the end of our war. We have defeated the Goa'uld. Cronos, Yu, Heru'ur, Neferti, all are dead. The only one who remains is Apophis, trapped with a small band of Jaffa within a crumbling temple deep in the forests of a now uninhabited world.

"OK, people!" ColonelGraham shouts. "Let's move out!"

He sounds like O'Neill.

As ColonelGraham continues to give orders over his radio, we close in around Apophis' final retreat.

Abruptly there is movement within the temple, and almost instantly the battle begins. Our opponents fight well, with the desperation of those who have nowhere to run. They win or die. They cannot retreat.

But they will not win.

My world becomes the few metres surrounding me as the two groups merge and hand-to-hand combat begins.

I twist and duck and strike in a dance of death, and about me bodies fall, faces frozen in distorted death masks.

We are winning; Apophis' troops are dwindling, becoming disheartened. The Goa'uld have lost.

As the battle fades, I hear a desparate cry. "Die, Shol'va!"

I look up to see a staff weapon fired at me, then look down to my chest to see the death-wound that bleeds with the force of a grieving mother's tears. Slowly, I go to my knees, then fall sideways into the dirt, dropping my staff weapon and keeping a tight hold on my chest and my pain.

"Father!" My son bends over me, face twisted in grief.

I reach out weakly to touch his face. "You are a great man, my son. Live well, Rya'c."

"No, Father," he protests. "You can't die now, we've won."

"Yes," I agree. "We have won. I am no longer needed. I kept my promise. We won."

"Father..." he pleads.

"Do not grieve," I beg him. "Remember me with honour. I have completed the task I set myself; I am content. Live well, Rya'c. Goodbye, my son."

He grips my hand silently, while in the distance a great cry goes up. They have killed Apophis. We won.

We won.

* * *

**Part the Sixth**

_The earth shall soon dissolve like snow,_  
_The sun shall cease to shine,_  
_But God, who called me here below,_  
_Will be forever mine._

Death brings release from the overwhelming pain of a wound that not even a Prim'ta would be able to heal. I feel curiously free and weightless, despite the fact that I am still contained within some semblence of a body. I look around, but I appear to be surrounded by a billowing mist that wraps thickly around me but does not feel cold nor damp.

Abruptly a glow begins to my right, a warm glow as if the sun were trying to shine through the heavy fog. Although initially faint, it brightens quickly, until it blazes around me like fire.

Figures step out of the mist, and a familiar voice greets me. "Hey, Teal'c, ol' buddy, ol' pal!"

I stare in unconcealed surprise as O'Neill, MajorCarter and DanielJackson approach me with broad grins on their faces. The glow, warm and welcoming, emanates from them, causing our clearing in the fog to glow with the warmth of a sun. What is this place?

They crowd around me for several minutes of jubilant reunion before I become aware that two more figures are watching us.

The smaller is a boy I recognise. Charlie, O'Neill's dead son. He stands beside his father, who slips a proud arm around his shoulder.

The other is... Sha're. Even as I begin to feel guilty for my role in her death, she smiles at me. "Thank you for releasing me from the demon, Teal'c," she says. "And thank you for saving Dan-yer."

I shake my head slightly, unable and unwilling to absolve myself, and wondering how I can accept forgiveness from one who I have killed.

MajorCarter frowns at me with mock reproach. "There's no place for regret here, Teal'c," she says, taking one of my hands. Charlie reaches out to take the other, and the two pull me thorugh the mist, as I realise that I am acquiring a glow of my own. The others follow, as we reach a place that matches my friends in brightness.

I turn to look at those behind me, and O'Neill smiles at me. "Teal'c, the adventure is only just beginning."

I turn back as the mist parts, to reveal...

The adventure is just beginning.

Indeed it is.

_Fin_

Copyright 2001


End file.
